Boost Your Airmiles Discussion Area

TanyaLBeck_2

also, i only have 1500 for the both of us so Prague/ other zone2 is out of the question!
I was offered a tesco credit card instore today that would give me 'double' clubcard points. Is this better than using my airmiles duo credit card????
Tanya

seosb

NonGeographicalMan wrote: »

The scheme is NatWest Your Points I believe, their successor to their previous Air Miles deal. Ironically my mother carried on collecting NatWest Your Points miles by default due to having a NatWest credit card but I keep on telling her not to as she needs to take flights from Heathrow with BA or BMI and Gatwick is very inconvenient for her.

I suggest using them all (or as many of them as you can) in a one off go from Heathrow to somewhere that you cannot fly to from Bristol at all, so hence you won't then feel you are losing out.

Surely you realise that Air Miles is a second class scheme for the unwashed masses (or as its parent company is better known - British Airways). Its first class scheme is called BA Miles and is for BA's well heeled regular First and Club class passengers.

When First Class and Second Class miles were introduced by BA they deliberately made the conditions of Air Miles worse by no longer allowing you to book One Way flights or take connecting flights from regional airports. Things they do allow BA Miles holders to do.:mad:

Air Miles is now just a huge accountancy liability for BA like their Final Salary pension scheme. The more they can do to ensure that at least a good proportion of their customers are never able to get around to redeeming their miles for flights then the more BA's accountants like it.:eek:

This is all the more true now that customers no longer have to pay Air Miles any form of cash to actually go on the flights and they then lose the cost of the government tax they have to pay for you and also the cost of the small amount of extra fuel they need to carry on the aircraft to cover your own weight and that of your baggage. It goes without saying that they never ever let you book a seat on any flight that they think they may have actually been able to sell for a cash fare.

I have been collecting Air Miles for 20 years and only ever managed to take two return flights with them. One was to Italy (in fact outbound to Genova and back from Verona in the days when Airmiles allowed one way flights) and the other was return to Vienna.

My current plan is to use most of my 10,000 miles to go to Australia before BA finally goes belly up along with its mileage company subsidiary and its two air miles brands.

ive done 6 fights a year just use the tesco clubcard vouchers everything else is too slow to collect

NonGeographicalMan

seosb wrote: »

ive done 6 fights a year just use the tesco clubcard vouchers everything else is too slow to collect

6 return flights a year requires a minimum of 4500 Air Miles to the destinations requiring the lowest numbers of miles (you don't say where you are flying to). 4500 Air Miles cost 75 £2.50 Tesco Clubcard vouchers with a face value in store of £187.50 or £750 off ClubCard Deals promotions where the Clubcard vouchers are worth four times as much like ferry crossings, Eurotunnel crossings, annual season pass to Legoland etc, etc.

So if your 6 return flights are to say Edinburgh from London you could probably buy them for £300 including all charges and taxes on the cheapest deals with Ryanair or Easyjet.

If you happen to only travel on a route where Air Miles always has availability then I suppose this may work out but as the routes I want to travel on never have space when I want to go with Air Miles I would rather take the Tesco Clubcard vouchers and spend them in store or use them for Clubcard Deals and buy my flights using cash so I can go on the dates I need to travel on.

By the way can you list the 6 flights you have taken in the last 12 months to convince me that you are not an employee of The Mileage Company (aka Air Miles) or Tesco given that you are a new forum member and that this is your first post in the forum;):p

BusPass_2

I use my Airmiles (collected with Tesco ClubCard points) to book my hotels only.

I combine my hotel booking with Ryanair special offers and have had a week's holiday in Spain for a few quid! I've got another one lined up. Total ost is going to be £20. Beats the Sun holidays!!!

An earlier poster mentioned about having Air Miles and not using them. IIRC they have a time limit now on when you must utilise them or lose them

NonGeographicalMan

BusPass wrote: »

An earlier poster mentioned about having Air Miles and not using them. IIRC they have a time limit now on when you must utilise them or lose them

No they only now have a rule that you must collect one mile per year or they will then charge you a fee to redeem them until you have collected a mile or eventually wipe out your miles after a further period of inactivity.

The only miles that expire automatically if they are not used in a short period are the Air Miles vouchers offered to those who took out the Lloyds TSB duo card in more recent times. But when I took out the card a couple of years ago the miles were just added permanently to my account as normal Air Miles.

I do find it very annoying indeed that the only special offers from Air Miles now are on the hotels in their weekly emails and that they never any longer discount the mileage required on routes that have low levels of use during the offpeak season as they used to. As you say this does seem to encourage you to fly Ryanair or Easyjet and only use the Air Miles to book the hotels. Also if I want to fly to Sydney in November or December there only seems to be Air Miles flights with Virgin and none with BA. How can that possibly make any sense? Can we assume that the BA flights are only being offered to holders of the BA Miles scheme?:mad:

Victoria_Meldrew

We've been collecting airmiles for ages now, and as others have pointed out, it is usually cheaper to buy flights direct from elsewhere. Posters on here seem to have a pretty good grasp of things so my question is this: We usually get wine with our airmiles but is it better to use the airmiles to get wine or to use the usual clubcard vouchers. I keep going round in circles trying to work it out.

IM

Is there any way of finding out more detail of the hotel room types available with Airmiles?

I'm trying to figure out the best value to be had from my stash (just over 20,000), but it's hard to compare, when all the search returns is something like "1 x double room".

If you go to the individual hotel's website, to try and figure out the cash cost of a room, there are typically numerous ratings of rooms - "deluxe", "executive", etc. (but strangely never the more realistic "broom cupboard").

I'm guessing that I should assume the cheapest/smallest room is the one, but it would be useful if Airmiles were specific and/or used the hotels' specific terminology.

Ecky-thump

IM,
I've no idea sorry, but I cannot wait to read the answers from those in the know about this one! Thanks for asking the question, for us all.

Wardy7

I've never had a credit card before but do a fair bit of spending on my debit card. I've just been looking into airmiles as I've never even considered a credit card before as I have no requirement for one but am interesetd in the potential rewards I could get from one.
I see that amex do a BA airmiles credit card offering about 1 airmile per £1 spent, are these airmiles only available to be used then on BA flights?

Also, I take it with a credit card you receive a bill each month(?) with how much you have spent, if you pay the amount off in full then I take it you don't pay any extra on top in interest?

Sorry for what may well be stupid of basic questions.

blindman

Wardy7 wrote: »

I see that amex do a BA airmiles credit card offering about 1 airmile per £1 spent, are these airmiles only available to be used then on BA flights?

You can book on their partner airlines as well.

Also, I take it with a credit card you receive a bill each month(?) with how much you have spent, if you pay the amount off in full then I take it you don't pay any extra on top in interest?

Yes, that's the way to do it

Sorry for what may well be stupid of basic questions.

The big problem with collecting then spending miles (BA or BMI etc) is there are taxes to pay on top of the miles. Also there is severe lack of availability.

Also you need a fair few (30-40,000) to make any kind of journey.

If you are not a frequent flyer then it's probably best to get a Cashback CC and spend the money earned on flights.

This thread on Credit cards may be more appropriate